Promise
by Auron Belmont
Summary: How do you begin to raise a child without any aid or clue?  Auron has to figure it out the hard way, but Tidus' favorite sport might help.


A blond little scowl. That's what Tidus looked like to anyone watching him sulking on the beach. That's what it looked like to Auron. He watched the kid pout and sit with his knees drawn up to his chin, toeing the sand.

"We understand that it's very difficult for a child to lose both of his parents, but we're beginning to lose hope of getting Tidus to tell us what's on his mind." Rayan, one of the guardians of all the kids in foster care, twisted her braid in her hands.

Tidus now resided within this special group. Although Auron had tried to explain it had been the wishes of his parents that he watch over the kid, a man's word wasn't enough evidence in this city. Sadly, Tidus' mother hadn't written any of her wishes down. So now he was truly stymied in his desire to fulfill Jecht's promise.

The fayth keeping the dream alive couldn't directly interfere. Upon arriving to the Dream Zanarkand, the fayth explained to him they couldn't bend the wills of all the people in order for them to accept Auron. Just the fact Auron was able to enter into the dream put a lot of its residents off balance. Even if they couldn't understand why. He had to explain that he lived on the far outskirts of the city and had been an occasional friend of Jecht's.

That had explained his appearance – outskirts equaled foreign territory – and why he hadn't been seen much in the city before. As for Jecht's passing, Auron had said, truthfully, he'd been one of the last people to see Jecht alive before setting out to sea. It helped when Jecht's wife believed his story and believed he told the truth about Jecht's death.

Auron cursed himself a thousand times, knowing his words had killed someone else. That death didn't sting nearly as much as the loss of Jecht and Braska crushing his chest every waking moment of the day. He tried to rationalize it in his mind. If Auron had never shown up in the dream, likely Jecht's wife would have died anyway, knowing her husband was already gone.

It didn't help much.

It also didn't help, months later, that he had no say in what was happening to Tidus. The people seemed sympathetic to his plight and his willingness to apply himself to be a legal guardian. Auron had had to find a place to live (so very tiny and cramped in the city!) and apply for work and continue to show up punctually for every supervised visit.

The only good thing out of the mess was the houseboat belonging to Jecht had been previously paid for. It would be held in trust until Tidus turned 16 or until Auron could prove himself to these stubborn people that he had the kid's best interests in his Unsent heart.

So today's unexpected call (all this machina, real and unreal, hurt his head) seemed like a breakthrough.

"Has he been giving you any trouble at all?" Auron asked.

"Not any more trouble than any other kid we have, sir," the caretaker replied. "He just seems to be bottling everything up. It's like he's made a conscious decision that no one can help him."

Fayth, Auron knew that feeling too well. Many times he'd been on the verge of breakdown but he never skirted over that edge. He knew no one would help him and if he gave up, Tidus would also have no one to help him.

Dark resignation settled in his soul. Fine. No one would ever be able to help him. The sorrow would never go away. If he could do anything to stop that from happening to anyone else, especially a kid who had no control over the circumstances, Auron would find the strength to follow through on his promise.

That had been last week. To make sure the locals accepted him more, he started to change. He tucked his left arm inside his jacket whenever he held his sword. He wore shirts with high collars as a lot of people on the outskirts wore. He added a pair of blueish tinted shades to hide his eyes, especially the one scarred shut. He chopped his hair much shorter, but kept a small little tail in the back.

When he looked at himself in the mirror, he looked unreadable. Cold. Resolute.

"Hunh. Pretty big decision for a kid."

"We've tried everything we usually do for our kids but nothing seems to reach him"  
>"So why call me if you're the expert?"<p>

"Well, Auron, it's that on rare occasions Tidus does feel like talking, he wants to know when you're coming again." Rayan smiled. "I know he never seems enthusiastic when you visit but when you leave, he has a calendar to keep track of when you'll come again."

"Is that right." At least he'd been making some progress.

"It's true! He's been very down lately, even if he won't tell us. So I thought you might be able to help."

"Well, I can try." Auron pushed his shades up the bridge of this nose. "Do you mind giving us some privacy? I'll stay here on the beach but maybe he'll start talking if he thinks you're far enough away."

"Of course, Auron. Oh dear...you two! Dunking is NOT what I taught you!" The caretaker ran off to stop two other kids from drowning each other.

The swordsman inhaled and exhaled slowly, the echoes of old monk mantras in his head. He forced himself to take a step and he kept walking.

Tidus turned his head and wiped at his eyes. Then he brightened. "Auron! Oh, nice shades!"

"Thank you." He settled his sword on the ground before sitting next to Tidus.

"Why are you here? Today isn't a visit day."

"I know." Trying to figure out what exactly to explain to someone seven years of age proved a continual challenge. Sometimes he failed and sometimes he muddled his way through it.

"Did they tell you I was being bad?" His tone held accusation. "Did they call you here so you can tell me to be better? I knew it. Grownups are all alike."

Sometimes he just felt like hitting this kid so hard. "That's not why I'm here," he replied. Was he supposed to talk down to him? He didn't know how so he treated Tidus with the same level of disdain.

"Well why are you here then?"

Auron placed his hands behind him on the sand and leaned back. "They said you stopped talking to everyone."

"So you're here to tell me everything's going to just fine? Just like Ms. Rayan and everyone else says? And you're going to tattle on me if I don't say I'll behave, right?" Tidus raised his pitch and wrung his hands together. "Oh Tidus dear! Why can't you make friends and be like everyone else?"

Auron blinked and lowered his shades. "Do they actually tell you that?"

"All the time!" Tidus, realizing he just answered the question directly, scowled and looked away. "And you're going to tell me that too."

"Afraid not."

"You're not?" Tidus gaped a moment in confusion. "Well, well, you're gonna tattle on me!"

"Wrong again." Auron pointed up the beach. "They're watching all the other kids up there. They can't hear you so they couldn't hear me either. Go ahead."

"Go...go ahead and what?"

"Say whatever you need to say. Or don't say anything at all."

Tidus looked up at him, eyes wide. "I don't understand you at all, Auron."

The swordsman, hearing a lot of Jecht in that tone, chuckled. It was the first thing he'd found amusing since the worst day of his life. "That's okay. You don't have to understand me. Just believe me when I tell you something."

Whatever argument Tidus wanted to start seemed to be interrupted on the course from his brain to his lips. He dug his feet into the sand. "They just make me mad. They're always asking me how I'm feeling and do I like this or do I want to talk about mom and dad being gone. You know what they told me?" Tidus asked.

"What did they tell you?"

"That I shouldn't be angry at my dad! That he was a great person and I should look up to him. But you know how I feel? I _hate _him. I _hate _him so much, Auron!" He grabbed fistfuls of sand and tried to crush the grains. "I _hate _him because when he died, he was so jealous that mom was watching over me that he had to make her sick and take her too!"

Tidus leaned over on his knees and started to furiously pound away at the sand. "I _hate_ him!"

Auron didn't move although he did swallow to clear his dry throat. Somewhere in his own heart, he wanted to punch a wall and scream at how much he hated Braska and Jecht for leaving him behind. He especially hated Jecht for giving him this impossible task of stopping his life for untold years to watch a kid.

_So I can take a guess how much hate Tidus has for everything. At least I can make my own decisions. He has to lose everything _and _has to be watched over by strangers._

He figured Tidus pounding the sand wouldn't hurt the beach any and it wouldn't bloody the kid's hands. So he let him rage on until the kid stopped, hiccuping his sobs.

_Note: start carrying handkerchiefs. Just in case._

"You feel a little better now?"

"I dunno." Tidus waded into the water and washed off his hands and his face and trotted on back. "My hands hurt."

"Well, you were pounding the beach pretty hard."

"How come you didn't stop me?"

"What's the point?" Auron motioned him over. "Let me make sure you didn't cut yourself." A cursory inspection revealed some red marks but nothing bleeding.

"So are you going to tattle on me?"

Auron sighed. Tidus forced him to talk far more than ever did to anyone else, including Jecht and Braska. "What for? You didn't do anything wrong." Auron ticked off the reasons on his fingers. "You've been angry. You haven't felt like talking about it. People kept needling you about not talking. Made you angry. So you had a little fit to get rid of the anger."

Tidus made a little "o" of surprise with his mouth. "Then you understand! I wasn't trying to be bad or cause trouble. I just didn't feel like talking about it. Then they wouldn't stop trying to getting me to talk about what was going on. I almost punched someone 'cause of that! But I knew I'd get a swat for that."

"You should for hitting someone. It's okay if you just don't want to talk about it. Just don't hit anyone."

"Yeah, I know." Tidus agreed, reluctantly. "But if I can't hit people and I can't go to the beach and punch it, what I am supposed to do?"

More question Auron had to guess the answers to. "Try to work on something else and let your anger fuel that."

"Work on what? A car? I'm only seven!" Unconsciously he leaned back on the sand on his hands, mimicking the swordsman.

Auron laughed. "I didn't mean like that. I mean do something else for a while. Something where you're not sitting in your room thinking."

"Like watching a movie sphere?"

"Maybe."

"That's what they let us do sometimes, but I think that's boring."

"You can do whateveryou want. You just can't hurt other people."

"What do you do if you're angry, Auron? And you can't hit people."

Auron started. But it was a good question. "What I do? I practice with my sword."

"Why do you have a sword? That's so oooooold. That's like what people used a million years ago!"

"I happen to like it." His eyes crinkled up in amusement.

"But you don't have to use one! If you're a security guard, you can have a gun and shoot the bad guys in two seconds!"

The few temporary jobs Auron managed to find were all in security. It made sense. Guarding a building or a bank (what an odd concept) wasn't that much a difference from guarding a temple from fiends. The monsters took on different forms.

It didn't matter what work he did, as long as it came in a more-or-less consistent manner. Anything to prove to these people he was serious about being Tidus' guardian.

"But what if the gun jams? What if I'm out of bullets? I always preferred a sword."

Tidus eyed the long edged blade. "I don't think I could use one of those."

"Probably not now. Maybe when you're older."

"I'll never use one, so there!" Tidus punctuated his statement by sticking out his tongue.

_What little you know. _"All right, you don't have to swing a sword and you don't have to work on a car. Is there anything else you'd like to do that doesn't involve hitting?"

"Well...there's one thing. But you'll laugh! Everyone else does!"

"How can I laugh if I don't even know what you're talking about?"

"Well...'cause everyone else does."

Ah, the logic of a child. "I thought you'd figure it out that I'm a little different from other people."

"More like a lot different," said Tidus, grinning.

"Obviously. I'll listen to your idea without laughing."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Whatever resolution Tidus heard in Auron's voice seemed enough. "Okay. I want to learn to play blitzball."

Auron nodded. "That would be a good way to burn off anger."

"Okay. But everyone's all 'oh you just want to be like your dad' but it's not that! It's not that at all!" Tidus kicked at some sand. "I want to play it 'cause I like the water and how excited everyone gets and because it's _fun_. But my dad just screwed it all up."

"How'd he do that?"

"Because he was so _good_ at it. Now people look at me and think I should be just like him! Makes me so mad!"

"I can understand that. So why would anyone laugh?"

"Oh you know," Tidus grumbled. "Kids laughing 'cause I can't hit the ball half the time. Adults who think it's so _cute _I want to be just like dad and they laugh. Bleh. Even my mom would laugh at me. I bet he told you all about what a great player he was, didn't he?"

"All the time." This conversation helped Auron understand the kid much more than the few visits both his mom alive and not alive.

If everyone you knew compared you to someone who was no longer alive, a number of things could happen. You could be stuck in the shadow of that greatness forever. You could strive to live up to the expecatations. You could forcibly take down that greatness by destroying yourself. Or you could move away from the idea of being compared and do something completely different.

Jecht had said his dream was to raise up his son to be a champion player and be really tough on him so he could show him what life was like at the top. Whatever method his friend had used hadn't been working. It had been doing the opposite. Fortunately Tidus hadn't lost the taste for the game. Just his father's training regimen.

Auron knew very little about raising children but he knew enough that forcing a kid to do something would get the opposite effect.

"Didn't it annoy you?"

"Sometimes. Like you said, he was a good player. I'm not that interested in it."

"WHAT? You're not _interested_?" Tidus gaped. "But _everyone _loves blitzball!"

"Not everyone can love everything," Auron said. Tidus channeled all of Jecht's feelings, minus the deep cynicism. Auron wavered between finding it annoying or amusing.

"Well, you have to be the only person in town who doesn't like it."

"I doubt that's true."

"Have you even tried it?"

The shadow of a pain, of broken ribs gradually slicing into his right lung on a long trek down Mt. Gagazet. Wincing, Auron put an arm over his chest. "No. Can't. I got hurt so it makes it hard to hold my breath very long."

"Oh. Auron, are you okay?" The kid placed a hand on his knee. "Did it hurt when it happened?"

"A lot." Odd that he felt the phantom pain in his Unsent body. But what did he know about being Unsent? "But it's better now."

"Okay." The hand dropped. "I can only practice kicking and stuff for now. I can't do a lot of the underwater training until I'm 10."

"How do you practice kicking?" At the incredulous look on Tidus' face, Auron elaborated. "I mean are you on land or water when you do it?"

A shrug of shoulders. "You can do it either way. Oh! I have an idea! Have you every tried shoreline blitz?"

"No, how does that work?"

"It's pretty simple."

Slightly more involved than playing catch, shoreline blitz required a blitzball, beach and nets if you had them. You had to have at least four people, two each for a team. You staked out areas with nets and each side had a keeper and a striker. You couldn't get very fancy with the attacks but the ball traveled farther.

"But we don't have enough people for a game," Tidus said with a sigh.

"We don't have nets either. What about a ball?"

"I think some of the teachers have 'em. But what's the point." The kid flopped back on the sand with an exaggerated "whomph!" of sound.

What was the point? Trying to fake some kind of bond by playing a game Auron didn't care about? What exactly was he supposed to do?

A flicker of having this scenario happen to him before teased the edges of Auron's memory. Where had he...oh that's right.

Wen Kinoc, his old friend in the church, told him about a little trip to one of the villages where there were lots of children.

_"I feel sorry for you, surrounded by all of them. You must have been out of your wits with crying kids."_

_ "That's not true. There's something to be learned in having all kinds of children begging for your attention to show you this and that. It's not necessarily that you have to like every little thing they do, but you should be interested. Because in finding out about whatever they want to tell you, you're finding out about them."_

If Auron wanted to be a legal guardian, he would have to accept that blitzball would fill Tidus' life and maybe become his career as a professional athlete. Unlike Jecht, he couldn't offer any professional advice or be an obstacle to shoot for.

_But maybe I don't have to. It's not what he needs._

"Well, I see a beach, water and there's a ball somewhere. That's all you really need, right?"

"Hunh?" Tidus sat up, brushing the sand off his clothes. "Auron, you said you're not a fan and you can't hold your breath well."

"I'm not and I can't. What if I stood near the shore? And you were on the water? The shore could be the goal." Auron pointed out to the water. "You could try taking kicks and I could try to stop you."

"Auron, you said you don't even like blitzball that much. So why would you want to play?"

"Well, maybe this is your chance." Auron stood up and brushed the sand off his coat and pants. "Convince me this is a game I should care about and maybe this sport will have a new fan."

"You really want to play with me?"

"Sure. Go get us a ball."

For the very first time, Auron saw what Tidus would look like if he were happy. His blue eyes lit up and all the sadness seemed swept away like the sun coming out after a storm. He ran off for the others.

It would probably take him a while to get a ball. It would certainly take Auron a while to take off his coat, belt and boots. He kept his shades on as they did help with sun glare. He couldn't but feel a little thread of anticipation wind its way into his stomach. How long ago had Auron played a game with someone that didn't involve swords?

A little out of breath, the kid ran back with a ball. "I'm all ready! Can I try any kick I want?"

Auron nodded. "Anyone you want."

"Well...I'm not the best at this. I'm not like my dad."

"I haven't been a goalie before. We'll both be new."

That seemed to have been the right response. Tidus swept up the ball and walked into the ocean. Auron walked behind him, feeling the wet sand sink between his toes. The water lapped up to his ankles.

Tidus waded out to his waist and held the ball in both hands. With more flexibility than Auron ever possessed, the kid jumped high enough to kick the ball. However, he didn't have the strength behind it. The ball landed in the water about a foot in front of Auron. He picked up the ball and tossed it back without comment.

Back and forth. Every fancy kick Tidus attempted ended with the ball stopping slightly short of Auron. He offered no criticism or encouragement as he tossed the ball back. The kid grew more and more infuriated with each failure to score. Finally he spiked the ball into the water, soaking himself in the process.

"Are you done with your tantrum?" Auron asked.

"I'm not having a tantrum!"

"Then are you quitting?"

"Well I can't score! This isn't fun anymore."

"So you are quitting. That's fine."

"Hunh?" Tidus wiped the water off his face. "You're not going to yell at me for quitting?"

"If you don't think you can do it, me yelling at you isn't going to make anything better." _Sorry, Jecht. I can't do this your way. It's going to have to be mine. _"If you think you've tried everything and you can't score, sometimes the best thing to do it walk away and try again some other time."

Tidus gnawed on his upper lip. "So...I can try again if I want to or I can quit if I want to?"

"That's right."

Given the choice between two things instead of being forced to accept one, Tidus looked at the ball and looked at Auron. "Well, what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to make the choice yourself." _If someday you're going to leave this place, you'll __have to trust in yourself to make the right decisions. _

The ball bobbed on the water's surface. Tidus picked it up, dropped it in the water. It hopped once before resuming its float. Auron patiently waited for him to make up his mind. He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Grinning from ear to ear, Tidus spiked the ball into the water. As it bopped up into the air, he jumped up to give it a good, solid kick. Startled, Auron had to leap to catch it. He had just enough time to smack it away and back into the water.

"Awwwwww! I thought that would work!"

"It almost did. Good thinking."

"Gimmie another shot! This time I'll aim it right over your head!"

Auron laughed and motioned with his hand. "Try me, kid."

An ear piercing whistle cut across their conversation. "Awwwwww man." Tidus picked up the ball and waded out of the water.

"What's going on?" Auron asked, walking back to his boots and robe.

"It's the whistle to get everyone together and back to the foster house."

"Ah. Playtime's over then?"

"Yeah."

Even though he scrubbed his feet as best he could, Auron knew he'd be picking sand out of his boots for a long time to come. He felt just as reluctant as Tidus to resume his daily life. "I'll see you in a few days, Tidus."

"Okay. Hey, Auron?"

"Hmmm?"

"Thanks for playing with me."

"Not a problem. If there's time and the weather's good, we can shoreline blitz again."

A wide-eyed stare. "But you don't like blitz."

"Maybe you're convincing me otherwise."

"Do you promise?"

Auron offered his hand. "I promise. Here, we'll shake on it. If you shake on a promise, you have to keep your word on it."

Tidus' hand felt so small in his own. "Okay. So you'll really come back to shoreline blitz next time?"

"Like I said, if there's time and the weather holds, I promise. You have to promise something too."

"Hunh? Like what?"

Auron pointed at the kid. "Keep your anger in check. It's frustrating but they're trying to help. Even if they annoy you."

Tidus gave his impression of the world's longest sigh. "Fiiiiiiiiine. I gotta go now. Bye, Auron."

"Bye, kid."

He picked up his heavy sword and wiped the sand off it. He looked out onto the ocean. Whether dream or real (it became harder to tell) it washed up blue and perfect onto the shore.

For a handful of moments, Auron forgot his sorrow in the middle of a game.

Maybe there was something to this sport after all.


End file.
